While it’s not the ultimate prize that it wants beyond anything else, the Jamesville-DeWitt girls soccer team still accomplished something rare and unique.
By defeating Whitesboro 3-1 Friday night at SUNY-Cortland, the Red Rams earned its 10th consecutive Section III Class A championship, a streak that began when some of the current J-D players were not even in kindergarten.
And that streak included three consecutive sectional finals wins over Whitesboro from 2010 to 2012. Now the Warriors were back, having edged past no. 2 seed Cortland 2-1 in overtime in the sectional semifinals two nights earlier.
Having undergone its own triple-OT scare in the quarterfinal round (a 1-0 win over CBA on Oct. 19), the Rams had used a big second half to put away East Syracuse Minoa in another 3-1 decision in its semifinal game last Tuesday at Chittenango High School.
Now it faced Whitesboro, an opponent less familiar than Cortland. That played to J-D’s advantage, as did the long battle the Warriors had faced against Cortland and the short turnaround.
Sensing all this, the Rams were not about to wait until the second 40 minutes to get on the board and, this time around, did all of its scoring damage in the first half to put away the Warriors.
Grace Thomas got it going with a goal assisted by Denise Yaeger. Then, midway through the half, eighth-grader Megan Baker took a pass from Tonia Kousmanidis and put it in the net to make it 2-0.
That lead grew to 3-0 just before halftime as Sydney Tanner converted, and though Whitesboro’s Alyssa Dellaposta did break up the shutout in the second half, the Rams didn’t allow anything more.
All of this had started with the OT battle against CBA. Once it got past that, J-D faced ESM in last Tuesday’s semifinal at Chittenango High School.
Even though it claimed 3-0 and 5-0 wins over ESM in the regular season, J-D knew that the Spartans, who had survived penalty kicks with New Hartford in its sectional quarterfinal, would prove difficult to tame the third time around.
Indeed, the first 40 minutes went scoreless as the Rams tried to weave around a stingy ESM defense, but J-D maintained its patience and waited for a breakthrough.
When it arrived in the second half, two more goals would follow. Taking turns finding the net, Grace Dimkopoulos, Sydney Baker and Tonia Kousmanidis scored, with Hayley Quackenbush earning an assist.
At least ESM, who finished its season 7-8-3, avoided another shutout at J-D’s expense, with Franchesca Polcaro earning a late goal that Madison Hartung assisted.
One round later, J-D had another sectional title, but immediately began its focus on the state tournament.
That begins Tuesday at 4:30 at Fulton with a game against Section X’s Massena. Two regional wins are needed for the Rams to earn yet another trip to the state final four, set for Nov. 10-11 in the Cortland area.
